Alter
by mous1elousi3
Summary: AU. Rukia's recovery a few years too late...


_**A/N: This is an old story/drabble, and I haven't altered it much as a result. It was inspired by another story I had read somewhere on this site, a kind of what if scenario. Enjoy**_

_**Disclaimer: I wish…though the haters…**_

She did not look up as Byakuya entered the cell trying his best to brace himself for the conversation to come. Instead she tightened her hold on the child sleeping on her lap and brought the other protectively over her stomach. Four months, the Twelfth's report had stated of the pregnancy, and the older child was four, born some six years after her mother had vanished from the trackers. But they had found her again, as he had always known they would, and if he could have his way she would never leave his sight again.

Her children, of course, presented a complication.

"Rukia," he said, when the doors of the cell had closed behind him and the guards had fled. If he tried he would probably feel the pull of the sekiseki stone on his reiatsu. He was far too powerful for it to have too much of a deleterious effect within the hour that he intended this interrogation to last. On her in her condition and the young child it must be torturous but it could not be helped. The child possessed power that threatened to leap the charts of whatever measuring equipment they used. For her sake, and her mother's, it was here they would have to stay.

"Nii-sama," said his sister, and she loosened the grip on her child only slightly to offer him a deep bow. Then, without waiting for him to acknowledge or speak, she said, "Let my daughter go. You want me but she's a child, she's human and innocent. Let her go."

He did not reply, at first rendered temporarily speechless at the rage that filled him. He had not approved of this marriage. He had not relented to Ukitake's request to send her to the Living World a decade ago so for this. The idea that she would run away had never even entered his mind, so convinced was he that she liked life in the Kuchiki Manor, difficult though it could be, and had finally settled enough so as not to run at the first sign of trouble. She was so much like the little rabbits she loved in that way. She had been so skittish, wary, watchful, so much so that he wondered more than once if it would be kinder to set her free. But apparently his earlier assessments had been all wrong. She was no bunny. Now, sitting here before him with one child on her lap and the other in her belly she had become a tigress.

He could not help but wonder if this was what Hisana would have become had any pregnancy lasted long enough.

"We cannot. There are rules against the unions of humans and shinigami and you have broken many of them, beginning with the transfer of your power. The child has inherited that power as well, in large enough amounts that the Twelfth, Central Forty-Six and the Zero Division are all concerned. At the very least, rest assured that no harm will come to you or them until the father has been collected and you have given birth."

He tried to clench his teeth around the last words and instead clenched his fists instead. By all accounts the children's father should have been dead weeks ago, having bled out on the bedroom floor of their home after Byakuya separated him from Rukia's powers. But then two days ago there was a disturbance. Someone had broken into the Seireitei. That someone was not alone, absurdly powerful and carrying a sword as tall as he was. Further, he also had a head of bright orange hair. The children's father had come to take his family back. He would find Byakuya waiting for him.

Rukia looked up at him now, rising out of the bow to adjust to sleeping child. Then she said, "This is Aiko." She put a hand on her belly. "If it is a boy, this is to be her brother, Kaito, or if another girl, Mai." I did not expect to have the first and the second is as much as a surprise. I thought… when I first realised… we did not expect… I thought she would have died before she was born. I didn't think it was possible. And now, we had decided that it was too dangerous and yet, here I am again…" She paused, swallowed, gently stroked the little girl's hair, and said, "Take her. Do not leave her in this place with me. They won't go against the Kuchiki clan so easily."

Byakuya said nothing. The little girl shifted on her mother's lap, face twisting as if she were dreaming something unpleasant, and then relaxed. She looked a little like her mother, but there were traces of her father too. The eyes were her mother's, the nose her father's, the cheeks, chin, all else were her own. Curious how those features looked so much like a certain late Shiba. Strange enough that her father was the spitting image of the man. He could just see her and her unborn sibling running through the manor as if they owned the place… except for one thing.

"I cannot. They are human."

"Well keep her until they've decided what to do with me. She will give you no trouble," she pleaded.

He did not reply, just looked at her. She stared back at him, her eyes teary, and then seemed to recollect herself and who he was and where they were. Then she said, "I know I have no right to ask this of you after what I have done. I know that I have thrown your kindness in your face, dishonoured your house and insulted your pride. I have no right to ask anything of you now any more than I ever did. But I am _begging _you. Please take my child from here. My life is worth _nothing_ if she dies. She did nothing wrong except be born to me."

"Okaa-san…?" said a tiny voice.

They both looked down to her lap to find the child awake and staring at him. With her eyes open now he saw that they were brown like her father's. In fact, she took much of her features from her father, so that she was a little tall for her age and dark as he was. The only traces of her mother were the hair, nose and mouth and the traces of defiance and mischief and wilfulness in her eyes. Given enough time she could probably wrap him around her little finger as securely as her mother and aunt had done. He could see himself denying her nothing, no matter how much it would cost him, if it would make her happy and want to stay with him. Did her mother not understand what she was asking him? But no, of course not, she was not yet privy to the details of her sister, his late wife, and so could not know how similar this was to a conversation he had had nearly sixty years ago.

"Who are you, Oji-san?" asked the little girl, sitting up now, still staring at him. She looked up at her mother a moment, they exchanged a warm, happy glance, and then she said, "My name is Kurosaki Aiko. What is yours?"

He surprised himself by replying, "I am your mother's older brother."

The child took a moment to process this and then her eyes went wide. "You're my real uncle, Oji-san? You've come to take us home to Tou-san?"

Byakuya felt a painful twinge in his chest and a surge of irritation at the man and the circumstances that had brought them here. If things had been done properly this was a conversation they would never be having. The child would already have started her training as his heir, as a proper lady of the Kuchiki clan and noblewoman of the Seireitei. Instead, the Central Forty-Six could order her execution, despite her being a human child. Her mother was right. The child would be safest in the clan.

He said, "Lieutenant Abarai."

The door of the cell opened too quickly for his lieutenant not to have been listening from the other side. There was a gasp, Rukia, and she tightened her grip on the child again. No doubt she was remembering that desperate moment when they first entered the house and she had run off to her daughter's bedroom. Renji had intercepted her, meaning to incapacitate her, and was only stayed from drawing his zanpakuto by her frantic cry that she was pregnant. He had been so stunned he had stopped long enough for her to get away. But she had not intended to escape, merely to retrieve the still-sleeping older child before their back-up did and go with them quietly. Still, he had not gone near to her again nor even looked in her direction until now. Byakuya suspected that he should have told the man about the marriage and the child beforehand but decided that ultimately it was not their concern. In fact, if the father had not fought back they would have probably taken her away without incident.

"Yes, Captain?" said Renji, still not looking at Rukia or her daughter.

"Take the child to the manor," said Byakuya.

"What, Captain?" Renji asked, stunned. Then, he collected himself and said, "Yes, Captain. Come on, kid."

The little girl shrank back towards her mother as he approached, but then found that her mother was pushing her towards the towering, tattooed, red-haired man and cried, "Okaa-san, no! I don't want to go! Okaa-san, don't let me go with him! Okaa-san!"

But Rukia had made up her mind and would be ruthless if she had to. She pried the child's hands off her and shoved her into Renji's arms while staring determinedly at the floor. The little girl started kicking and screaming, struggling to break free of the unfamiliar hold even as he struggled to restrain her.

"Hey! Kid, cool it! Calm down, kid!" he yelled, to no avail.

Finally, Byakuya could take it no more and said, "Shut up."

The little girl's mouth clamped shut as if he had uttered a binding spell, her tears silently spilling down her cheeks until her clothes. She kept her eyes on her mother though, as Renji lifted her properly into his arms and carried her out the door. Rukia and Byakuya remained in silence listening to their departure until they could no longer hear them. Then, when they heard the bridge drawing away Rukia seemed to have a change of heart and got up from where she had been seated on the floor and rushed to the door, screaming, "Aiko! Aiko! My baby! Aiko!"

Byakuya stood to stop her, but then did not move. She had no way of escaping and the door was sealed until he was ready to leave. He let her get it out of her system then, the realisation that she would never see her child again, the fear that her decision might have been wrong, the understanding that this would happen again, when she had the second child. He made no attempt to reassure her that her child would be fine with him. He had already done a terrible job of taking care of two women but he would try his best with this third. Besides, it was no longer her concern what happened to her daughter now that she had surrendered the child to his care. So he waited, and eventually she spent her energy and collapsed against the door weeping, repeating only, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Then he asked, "Why did you do it?"

She did not reply, perhaps had not even heard him over the sound of her guilt and pain, the accusing voices in her head. He repeated, louder, "Why did you do it? Why did you abandon your post?"

She stopped crying and looked up at him. He waited. She dried her eyes, straightened her yukata and then wrapped her arms around her belly and the remaining child. Then she said, "I did not abandon my post. I was there the whole time."

"You sent in no reports. You could not be found. You abandoned your post," he said.

"I had no powers. I kept track of the Hollow exterminations and assisted any way I could until the day came that I could not anymore. I don't know why you could not find me when I was not even hiding. Perhaps you should ask Mr Urahara about that. I was waiting for my powers to return and they never did. I woke up one morning to find blood on the sheets and when I went to ask him about it, all he said was 'I'm sorry, Miss Kuchiki. I tried everything that I could but it seems that it could not be reversed. You lost your powers and your gigai compensated by making you human.' It did not make a lot of sense at the time but it was all he would give me. Eventually I decided that I might as well make the best of the situation," she said.

"Is that when you decided to marry the boy?" he asked.

Absurdly, annoyingly, her face momentarily lit up at the mention of him, and then she said, "No. That came later, when he was older and I let my guard down. I should have been more careful but I thought that you all had decided I was dead and had stopped looking. He didn't force me into anything, if you're wondering. When I disappeared I had gone to stop a Hollow from killing his family, he got in the way. I gave him my powers because I thought at the time that he had a better shot of killing the Hollow than I did. I didn't expect to lose all of my power but that's what happened." She caressed her stomach a moment, and then continued, "He did not force me into this either. I don't know when I fell in love with him and I'm still surprised that he felt the same way. And before we knew it there was Aiko and he was working at his father's clinic and we had a nice little house like a normal family and no one was the wiser."

Byakuya studied her face all while she spoke. There was no shame there, no guilt, no anger, just sadness and resignation. She had just told him of all the things that she had lost and it seemed to matter no more to her than if she had lost a favourite kimono. It made him wonder if she had been waiting for them to track her down all this time and had made up her mind to go with them quietly when they did. The only thing she had not anticipated though was actually being separated from her little family. She held her stomach now as if it were a lifeline.

He asked, "You have committed some very serious crimes. The sentence for these together has been decided as death. I may be able to delay it on account of the child but no more than a month after it is born."

Her breath hitched at this announcement, and then she sighed, unhappy, resigned, and shut her eyes. He watched this sequence unfold without a word, waiting for her to break down again and beg him for her life. The rules were clear; she had committed a crime and had to be punished for them. But she was also Hisana's sister, her legacy, and while he had failed to keep her out of trouble if she asked this one time, just one more time for mercy he would find a way. Maybe there was still a way to save her. An appeal from a noble house was not to be ignored, even if the rest of the clan would rebel.

She had been silent for a while, so quiet that he wondered if she had fallen asleep, and then she asked, "What is to become of Aiko?"

"As for your daughter and unborn child, they are humans and belong to the Living World. Once we have determined that they in fact pose no threat to Soul Society they will be released to your husband's family," he said.

"What, you're going to put them in a basket and float them down the river?" she asked, testily.

"Ru—" he began, but the tigress was bearing her fangs.

"—what are they going to think? First their son is murdered and his wife and daughter disappear and then suddenly here is the little girl and her newborn baby brother on their doorstep, safe and sound, with no sign of their mother and no note? Mr Isshin is probably going to think my yakuza family finally came back for me and swear vengeance on his wife's portrait, but the girls… the girls will be heartbroken. Why did you come back for me? I'm human now. I haven't told a soul, not even my husband about Soul Society in all these years, and even if I had there was no way for him to find it. You could have left us alone. _Why didn't you leave us alone?_"

She was glaring at him, not at the floor as she might have done in another life, but at his face. She had changed so much in their time apart. She had every right to be angry too, because he had failed to get them to drop the search, too caught up in his own fear that she had been killed or turned into a Hollow that he had not considered other possibilities. But then, he had not known that Yoruichi and Urahara were alive. Nor could he have imagined how much more dangerous Urahara had become. It was Rukia's gigai that had made her human all right, but it had not been something done by chance. It had been designed specifically to make her human over time and keep her that way once it was done. Why, well no one knew the answer to that yet and that was perhaps the only thing that truly disturbed him about this whole affair. Why had Urahara chosen Rukia, of all the shinigami that had come and gone from Karakura since his exile, for this? And if it was to protect her from punishment in Soul Society, why not tell her that instead of that little lie?

Byakuya's gaze drifted to her stomach, the telltale bulge just visible from where she sat. Urahara had a reputation for being a mad scientist, experimenting on levels unheard of on things that should be forbidden if they were not already. The air of secrecy that surrounded him and his life with the Shihouin clan, even now, was practically impenetrable. He had experimented on souls before. Was this another experiment? But they already knew what happened when you mixed a human and a shinigami. Was it something else?

Suddenly there was a bell. His time was up, and so he rose immediately to leave. Rukia looked up at him as he stood, then realised why he had and scurried away from the door. She said nothing to him as he called for the guard, but just as he was to leave she said, "Please tell my daughter that I love her. Tell her that I swear on Usako's life that everything will be alright and that she must listen to you or she won't have the trip to Tokyo for her birthday."

"Who is Usako?" he asked.

She smiled, "She decided that that is the baby's name."

"I will relay your message. Do not allow anything to happen to the second child," he said. It was as much as he would dare.


End file.
